Passenger railroad carA passenger railroad car or passenger car (American English), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (British English and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (Indian English) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers. The term passenger car can also be associated with a sleeping car, a baggage car, a dining car, railway post office and prisoner transport cars. The first passenger cars were built in the early 1800s with the advent of the first railroads, and were small and little more than converted freight cars.
Free public transportFree public transport, often called fare-free public transit or zero-fare public transport, refers to public transport funded in full by means other than by collecting fares from passengers. It may be funded by national, regional or local government through taxation, or by commercial sponsorship by businesses. Alternatively, the concept of "free-ness" may take other forms, such as no-fare access via a card which may or may not be paid for in its entirety by the user.
Edge cityEdge city is a term that originated in the United States for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban residential or rural area. The term was popularized by the 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while working as a reporter for The Washington Post.
Car classificationGovernments and private organizations have developed car classification schemes that are used for various purposes including regulation, description, and categorization of cars. The International Standard ISO 3833-1977 Road vehicles – Types – Terms and definitions also defines terms for classifying cars. The following table summarises the commonly used terms of market segments and legal classifications. Microcar and Kei car Microcars and their Japanese equivalent— kei cars— are the smallest category of automobile.
Effects of the car on societiesSince the start of the twentieth century, the role of cars has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In developing countries, the effects of the car on society are not as visible, however they are nonetheless significant. The development of the car built upon the transport sector first started by railways. This has introduced sweeping changes in employment patterns, social interactions, infrastructure and the distribution of goods.
Last mile (transportation)In supply chain management and transportation planning, the last mile or last kilometer is the last leg of a journey comprising the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. "Last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly, in supply chain management last-mile describes the difficult last part in the transportation of people and packages from hubs to final destinations.
Admissible heuristicIn computer science, specifically in algorithms related to pathfinding, a heuristic function is said to be admissible if it never overestimates the cost of reaching the goal, i.e. the cost it estimates to reach the goal is not higher than the lowest possible cost from the current point in the path. It is related to the concept of consistent heuristics. While all consistent heuristics are admissible, not all admissible heuristics are consistent. An admissible heuristic is used to estimate the cost of reaching the goal state in an informed search algorithm.
Quantum mechanics of time travelUntil recently, most studies on time travel are based upon classical general relativity. Coming up with a quantum version of time travel requires physicists to figure out the time evolution equations for density states in the presence of closed timelike curves (CTC). Novikov had conjectured that once quantum mechanics is taken into account, self-consistent solutions always exist for all time machine configurations, and initial conditions. However, it has been noted such solutions are not unique in general, in violation of determinism, unitarity and linearity.
Balanced budgetA balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budget deficit, but could possibly have a budget surplus. A cyclically balanced budget is a budget that is not necessarily balanced year-to-year but is balanced over the economic cycle, running a surplus in boom years and running a deficit in lean years, with these offsetting over time.
OldsmobileOldsmobile (formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors) was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produced over 35 million vehicles, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory alone. During its time as a division of General Motors, Oldsmobile slotted into the middle of GM's five passenger car divisions (above Chevrolet and Pontiac, but below Buick and Cadillac).
